10 Places on Earth That Look Completely Alien

The lava flow from the Kilauea volcano makes for an excellent picture.

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Venus, the second-closest planet to the sun, is home to more volcanoes than anywhere else in the solar system, and its landscape is composed largely of plains of basalt, a type of rock formed by their lava flow.

The closest thing on Earth to a Venusian environment, oddly, may be the slick, black basalt formations on Hawaii's Big Island [source: Mother Nature News]. One of the best examples of a Venus-like volcano is Kilauea, the youngest and southernmost volcano on the island, and one of the world's most active. Since 1952, there have been more than 34 eruptions at Kilauea, which in Hawaiian tradition is the home of Pele, the volcano goddess [source: USGS].